Tony Blair: More American than the US President

‘The Situationist‘ recently featured research by Mahzarin Banaji and Thierry Devos on the connection between being white in the US and being regarded American. It’s a sensible addition to the “birther” conspiracy on Barack Obama’s citizenship (if you have not heard of it, watch this Daily Show segment that presents the debate with the scrutiny and mock it deserves).

Here is what Banaji found out:

Amazingly, white Americans did see a white European like Hugh Grant as being somehow more American than the Asian-American Connie Chung. And similar research in 2008 found that whites thought of ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair as somehow more American than Obama. So the mental framework to believe that Obama is foreign probably was, to use a health care term, a preexisting condition. [emphasis added]

What’s eclectic

"We do not need, have never needed, settled community, a homogeneous system of values, in order to have a home. Cultural purity is an oxymoron. The odds are that, culturally speaking, you already live a cosmopolitan life, enriched by literature, art, and film that come from many places, and that contains influences from many more."